Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A BIM is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle. In addition to the geometry of a facility, BIM data can also describe additional information, such as spatial relationships, light analysis, geographic information, and quantities and properties of building components (for example, manufacturers' details).
It is known to provide collaborative BIM software tools that enable several users, including ones at geographically remote sites, to work on the same BIM-based project (e.g., building model). An example is 4BIM, produced by 4Projects. This can allow any project member to review and interact with 3D building models using a World Wide Web browser. It may be desirable for the users to view other information pertaining to building models, such as COBie data corresponding to specific objects within the model. However, 4BIM does not provide such functionality. Therefore, the users may have to access additional programs to facilitate viewing of other related data, such as COBie data, decreasing user productivity, data management efficiency, etc. Furthermore, a multitude of users may work on a single BIM project and manipulate various aspects of the BIM data. However, users may make errors when manipulating the data. Therefore, some of the data may be invalid. The data errors decrease the reliability of the data in the BIM software which can negatively affect many aspects of building design, construction, and maintenance. 4BIM and other programs do not have the data management tools to determine errors in the data and perform quality analysis.